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You see, the educators in this country, having eschewed Euro-centrism, now march in lock-step with European Progressive Transnationalism. The key tenets of this latest mutation of Marxism are politically correct oppression of speech and multiculturalism. Having eschewed any of that old Western logic, they are unable to see the irony.
Alternate headlines for this story:
The Metaphysical and the Woman-made
Girls gone wild
The Effects of Not Taming the Shrew
Lysistrata takes over

As a nurse (now retired), I had extensive experience with just such a patient, who was cared for in the home. The parents gave loving care to the child, and were financially able to hire a nurse to care for the child during the day, but it became increasingly difficult as the boy grew (as stunted as his growth was overall). He didn't live past his teen years (as is usually the case). Like this couple's "pillow child", the boy was included in family activities, when he was well enough to do so, though they had to be extremely careful about having him around anyone with so much as the sniffles.
I have no patience fo those who make easy judgments about parents like this couple. They have no conception of what is involved in the constant care of such a child, yet they stand and pontificate against anything that would make such care easier to provide. What choices would be left to parents who could no longer care for their child because they simply cannot physically do the job? They could send the child to some facility where strangers who, however kind and competent, will never give the care that a loving family can give. There are parents who do not give loving care, of course. In such a case, the patient would be better off under professional care. In most such cases, the state pays at least some of the cost--that is, we all end up paying for the care of these patients. As long as the family is willing and able to do the job, it is none of the state's business. The only way it would become the business of the authorities is if there was documented abuse of the helpless one involved.
(That last paragraph is a mess, but I don't have more time to do anything about it. I hope it makes sense.)

If you know he was an evil dictator, how can you ask if he deserved to die? This was a man who had prisons for children. This was a man who gassed a whole village--and those who didn't die of the initial exposure now must live with the horror of genetic mutations visited upon their children; i.e., the destruction, misery, and suffering from that one act continues to this day, and will for generations. This was a man who dug a multitude of mass graves for those who displeased him. This was a man who tortured and maimed, raped and murdered without regard for the age, sex, or sin of the victim. Those who didn't die lived in perpetual fear for their lives and the lives of their children.
And his evil didn't stop at the borders of his own country. This was a man who made war on his neighbors, in no small part to keep the young men busy so they wouldn't turn on him, using gas during the Iran/Iraq war, and torture, rape, murder, and looting during the Kuwaiti war. This was a man who ordered the assassination of an American President. This was a man who paid terrorists and "martyrs" families $10,000 to $25,000 for murdering innocent Israelis sitting in pizza restaurants and celebrating weddings. This was a man who rained scuds upon the cities of Israel--a country who was not fighting against Iraq at the time. This was a man who dreamed of weapons of mass destruction--not to protect himself and his country, but to cause the mass destruction and terror of innocents.
We'll never know the true extent of the horror and suffering this man caused during his evil life.
By what standard would someone "deserve" to die? What is Justice?
Ask yourself about the justice of forcing his victims to continue to pay to feed and shelter their oppressor until he died of a natural death. What could possibly justify that? Haven't they paid enough?
If you do value life, then you will demand that mass murderers not be allowed to live because they are a real danger to your own life and all the values that make life possible. You do not succor evil, you destroy it.
Lastly, remember Miss Rand said that evils power is made possible by the sanction of the good. Allowing Saddam to live, allowing any murdering despot to live, sanctions evil.
As for the murdering al-Sadr, I shall be just as pleased to see him dead as I am with Saddam's death. And it can't be soon enough for me.

There is a lot to be inferred from that statement. Compare this with the way Ford, for instance, considers where to cut costs and employees. There is no consideration here of who is doing what and whether that activity needs to be cut, but the fact that none of the EU countries can afford financially or politically to lose jobs. It is a rather Atlas Shrugged scenario, except there is no John Galt in the wings waiting with his friends to rebuild. No, the only one standing in the wings is some Cuffy Mohammed Meigs, and he has no intention to rebuild anything.
The way I look at this is a bit different than those who understand what they are looking at when they look at spreadsheets and shareholder reports. What is worrying to me about the Airbus fiasco is that it further weakens the EU at a time when they can ill afford it. I'm not happy to see this happen because it weakens Europe's ability to fight off the Islamic incursions they must eventually fight if they are to survive. I know that there are many who have written them off, but I'm not quite ready to do that. Perhaps it is wishful thinking on my part, but a weak Europe puts a greater burden on us in the end. We are burdened enough with our own inept politicians.

Miss Rand would be the first to tell you that the premise, the idea that we are a "product" of our environment, is false. This doesn't mean that you can't use her, just that it would probably take more work than you have time for to do a proper job.
I am curious why you chose Miss Rand in the first place. Where did you learn about her?
If you still would like to use Miss Rand as your subject, may I suggest that you look up the Ayn Rand Institute. They have information specifically for students that you may find interesting. They are really the best resource and may be able to direct you to the information you need for the rest of your references and the work you need to do.
I want to address the responses you received so that you don't get the wrong idea. There is a lot of material about Miss Rand that isn't just wrong, but is vicious in its motivation and presentation. Rand did something that has only been done a few times in the history of philosophy: she offered a complete philosophic system. She is the heir of Aristotle, and an advocate of rational egoism. She made original contributions in Epistemology (how do we know what we know), and gave the first ethical basis for Capitalism. As such, she was the enemy of collectivism and the ethics of altruism that underpins the evil of collectivism. This made her an enemy of communism, of course, and all variations of collectivist philosophy, which meant that she has been pilloried by the intellectuals who champion these philosophies. That covers most of today's intellectuals.
She experienced the consequences of collectivism first hand as she grew up in Russia. To that extent, she was influenced by her upbringing. It is the philosophy of collectivism, however, that gives rise to the idea that we are molded by our environment. This is why she would loathe the premise of your essay. You can't help the school work you are given to do, however. You can only try to do it in as honest a manner allowed.
I wish you luck with the project and I hope you will come back and let us know what you've decided and how you've made out.

The problem is stated this way: There is, however, a disagreement about the nature of their problem:
It is no surprise, of course, that they are having trouble distinguishing between mafia-type gang warfare and Islamist intafadas, since there is little to distinguish the two in method or motivation. The Islamist may claim religious motivation, and believe it, but they live by crime none-the-less than any gang.
The philosophy that has driven the EU's rhetoric concerning the mess in the Middle East, now drives their own discussion: [Emphasis mine]
With that attitude, the violence won't end any sooner, or easier, than it has in Gaza and the West Bank. Of course, in Gaza the gangs have turned on each other. Surprise, surprise.
(I did what I could to bring what I wrote on this subject from the Airbus thread to its proper venue. I'll pay better attention from now on. )

I just noticed that Featherfall also posted on this in a different area. I didn't mean to step on his thread. I've been absent for a while, off the web altogether. It may take me a bit to find my feet again.

As the violence continues in France, there are those who are calling it an "intifada". From The Telegraph: There is a disagreement about the nature of their problem:
It is no surprise, of course, that they are having trouble distinguishing between mafia-type gang warfare and Islamist intafadas, since there is little to distinguish the two in method or motivation. The Islamist may claim religious motivation, and believe it, but they live by crime none-the-less than any gang.
The philosophy that has driven the EU's rhetoric concerning the mess in the Middle East, now drives their own discussion:
With that attitude, the violence won't end any sooner, or easier, than it has in Gaza and the West Bank. Of course, in Gaza the gangs have turned on each other. Surprise, surprise.

France, Germany and Spain have poured billions into an attempted direct threat to American enterprise, the Airbus A380, hoping to wrest the civil airline business from Boeing, in particular. I remember the festivities when they rolled out this plane.
They have just announced their third devastating setback. From an excellent analysis (with links) fromThe American Thinker:
What went wrong? Among other things...
The failure with the A380 is, of course, spilling over to other Airbus products. The company is also considering outsourcing labor to Russia and China, which will cause serious labor problems in France, Germany and Spain, none of which can afford them.

I enjoyed the part where the judge chided the posturing Christians for blatantly lying in an attempt to cloak ID in science. The judge is apparently a Christian himself and was highly offended that his fellows would resort to such antics in order to sneak ID into the schools. It's great that he called them on their hypocracy; he left them without a leg to stand on and it didn't come from someone they could smear as a sectarian, activist judge. Put a broad grin on my face.
(Understand that I don't think the judge's religious beliefs are actually important to the decision he wrote. It's just a bit of gravy.)

And are there microwave ovens at convenient distances so that these things can be reheated? And are these microwave ovens placed inside a heated, and private, room where women can take the damn things off to reheat them? Of course, that kind of support <kof> would be expensive, but necessary.
Unless they have an environmentally safe gel that can hold a comfortable level, without significant heat loss, for at least 10 hours. Without having to heat it to a temperature that would fry tender bosums when put on right out of the microwave.
No wonder the shorts aren't really an item.

What I said about the 1918 pandemic was what I remember from my study of medical history, which I did when I was getting my degree in nursing (from 1965-69).
I've personally dealt with some pretty virulent flu strains, both in the US and when I served in Viet Nam. There are strains that are, as was put above, perfectly capable of killing on their own. I'll add that such strains usually kill very quickly, too quickly for secondary infections to be a factor.
Recognizing the above doesn't invalidate what I said in my earlier post, however. I experience informs my book learnin', just as almost 100 years of experience, as well as book learnin' informs the science of medicine. Just the fact that we are discussing this as a potential problem is in stark contrast to the unexpected death that swept the nation. This makes a difference. How much of one remains to be seen.

They are using the pandemic from the WWI era to spread fear. Yes, millions died in a world wide pandemic. The great majority of those who died did so from secondary infections - bacterial infections which took hold when the patients immune system was compromised by the flu virus.
There are two things to remember when you hear the situation today being compared to the 1918 pandemic:
1. Life expectancy in the US was around 47. This was mainly due to the sanitary conditions, water quality, and level of medical knowledge and care at the time, which was bad on all counts, especially by today's standards. I won't even go into the kind of hard physical labor required of most people, labor which wore people out by an early age. (Remember the "old" woman at Starnesville?)
2. They had no antibiotics with which to fight the secondary infections which did most of the killing. They had no sophisticated treatments for lung infections (pneumonia being a leading killer), nor medicines and IV fluids for those affected by severe gastro-intestinal tract infections.
In other words, if the avian flu turns nasty for humans, those in countries which are mainly primitive will suffer greatly (just as they do when anything untoward happens). But those in countries with modern santitary conditions, clean water, etc., and the medicine to treat secondary infections, will suffer much less. I'm not saying that people won't die, but I am saying that it won't be 1918 again in the U.S.

Just what are these people threatening to do? How do they suppose they will take over? And why, pray tell, would the US have to submit to world opinion? What does "the world" plan on doing to us if we don't?
Don't you just love how they demand their "fair share" of something they didn't invent, or develop, or impliment? Of course, that is the essense of the U.N. - a "fair share" for countries that didn't produce any part of the pie.

ARI released an op-ed today about this argument and noted that the one entity left out of the discussion is the individual. We are now at a point where an argument in law about rights have nothing to do with the individual. Of course, they always argue law, as opposed to principle.